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within the said Oxlip area, so that the Primrose plants in question 
were at least that distance from any other Primrose plants 1 . 
The patches were inspected from time to time in succeeding 
years; and, when they could be discovered (the wood being grown 
up), the plants were found to be alive and flowering. Later, some of 
the patches appeared to have died out—smothered, doubtless, by 
the dense over-growth. I visited the wood early in April 1915, when 
I found that the plants forming one patch were in flower sparingly, 
but I could see no trace of any hybrids having arisen. About a 
fortnight later, however, on 30th April, Miss Saunders found that, 
not only were some of the original Primrose plants alive and in 
flower, but that, within the areas of four of the original nine patches, 
other plants, obviously hybrids ( P. elatior x vulgaris) and of the 
exact type of those I had described originally as this hybrid, had 
come into existence and were also in flower 2 . In the circumstances 
explained, these latter plants can have come into existence only as 
a result of natural hybridisation between the few introduced Prim¬ 
rose plants and the countless Oxlip plants growing all around them. 
Thus, after nearly seventeen years, our experiment proved per¬ 
fectly successful and completely demonstrated all we had sought to 
demonstrate. 
Experiment II. On 4th February 1906, I planted in Bush Wood, 
Broomfield, near Chelmsford, nearly fifty Oxlip roots (including 
plants of both forms) obtained from near Saffron-Walden; and, on 
the nth, I planted about thirty more, obtained from the same place, 
in College Wood, about a mile distant, both woods containing a 
profusion of Primroses and being at least ten miles distant from the 
nearest point on the margin of the eastern Oxlip District 3 . Both 
woods had recently been cut down. It was obvious, therefore, that 
some fifteen years would have to elapse before any result of the 
experiment could become apparent. 
In various succeeding years I endeavoured to find some of these 
plants; but, both woods being grown up, I was able to find one or 
1 Conceivably there may have been a few Primrose plants under cultivation 
in cottage gardens within a mile; but, if so, they were so few that they were 
hardly likely to affect the outcome of our experiment. 
2 The plants in another patch were not yet in flower, and the four remaining 
patches could not be found. 
3 In each case, I planted the plants, not in patches, but in three straight 
lines extending right across the wood. This ensures that, if one can find only 
two plants in a row, one can easily find all the rest; which is often difficult 
when the plants are set out haphazard. 
